Pregnant restaurateur Eula Baek (Chantelle Han) is in trouble. The pandemic has ruined the money she was making at her restaurant Peppergrass. But she does know that Captain Reuben Lom (Michael Copeman) has several precious truffles that she and her friend Morris (Charles Boyland) could make money from. So they head out of their empty restaurants and try to convince him to give them up.
Directed by Steven Garbas and Han from a script by Garbas and Phillip Irwin, there’s a lot of character building, conversation and wandering in the woods before the movie gets down to the concept that Reuben is dangerous and Morris is greedy.
The main issue? It’s hard to spend so much time with characters that are this unlikeable. But give this movie some credit; it’s anything if predictable.
I had a friend that once said that he knew that if someone, anyone he knew would take pills that he found laying on the ground, it would be me. Well, maybe not after watching this.
Made-in-Florida, shot in Miami, infused with the madness that drugs like bath salts and Krokodil were supposed to unleash on all of us, this is the story of a honeymooning couple — Chloe (Kimberly Laferriere) and Jack (Rogan Christopher) — who are looking at all kinds of experiences to strengthen their relationship, from an abortive attempt at swinging to taking peyote that a near-lunatic blood covered man gives them on the beach before he literally walks into the ocean.
Soon, their not-so-perfect new marriage isn’t their only problem. Whatever the drug that’s in their system, it does more than cause them to dance all night. It awakens a desire for human flesh.
Do Not Disturb is a totally confident film that is as much about eating other human beings as it is about devouring them emotionally through a relationship that should have really run its course. So yeah, unlike all those death of a relationship movies that usually bore me, this one sung right at my heart, because of course some people deserve to be eaten and then the leftovers tossed into the surf.
Don’t miss this one.
Do Not Disturb debuted at Popcorn Frights. When I have more information on when it will be available to a larger audience, I’ll update this article.
Two couples — Enzo (Leonardo Fuica), Polly (Caitlin Cameron), Ace (Alex Gravenstein) and Coco (Hannah Forest Briand) have left for a COVID-19 era campingtrip with the dream of escaping lockdown and enjoying the beauty of the woods. But even though they feel all alone, they’re not. Instead, they’re near Orick (Michael D’Amico) and Billy (Jonathan Vanderzon), two criminals who have just killed a man named Doc (Ben Pelletier) who claims that he has cured COVID-19.
You know what happens next: They find the man’s dead body. And the cure to COVID-19. And the criminals who want to kill them. And, of course, you know what I always say: stay out of the woods.
Directed by Demian and Leonardo Fuica (Leonardo also wrote the script and stars as Enzo), this movie kind of grinds to a halt once the campers decide to celebrate instead of getting out with their money and the cure. You know, once you find a treasure, secure it.
That said, if you want to watch some campers do the wrong thing for most of the movie, well…I can;t stop you.
Camping Trip is available by digital download from Gravitas Ventures.
After she falls down a steep rock face and gets split up from her friends, Caroline (Christine Nyland) finds herself alone and with a dislocated shoulder. Now, she must make her own path out of the woods.
Beyond acting in this movie, Nyland also co-directed and co-wrote Distress Signals with Terence Krey. They both worked on the movie Unquiet Grave together. Krey also plays James in this film.
The only thing more frightening than being lost alone in nature is being lost with someone you don’t trust. Caroline is already stressed and dealing with an injury; the fact that another person won’t leave her alone — a male someone who has a rifle — certainly doesn’t make having no idea how to get back home any easier.
Distress Signals is a taunt thriller about the limits of survival and if someone can go above and beyond what you expect from them thanks to a life and death situation. If you’re intrigued by man against nature, this is worth a look.
Directed by Jim Demonakos (founder of Seattle’s Emerald City Comic Con) and Kevin Konrad Hanna, this engaging documentary is about the world of Mike Mignola and the world he’s created around Hellboy.
Comic book and movie geeks — umm, speaking for myself, that’s the same audience — will enjoy hearing from Doug Jones, Guillermo del Toro, Patton Oswalt, Ron Perlman, Neil Gaiman, Mike Richardson, Art Adams and so many more about how the comic and movies came to life, but the true joy is in discovering how Adams bonded with Mignola and his brothers, how much of Hellboy is Mignola’s father (and himself) and how Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar was inspired to make Hellboy so personal.
There are also moments where the creator discusses how many times he felt defeated and how his family and later wife would help him overcome his fears. Even if you know nothing of the comics, the parts of this movie where Perlman breaks down remembering bonding with his father over movies (and getting the same opportunity to make something so personal as Hellboy), the way that Mignola and Del Toro overcame their artistic differences and how Mignola’s daughter ended up writing his favorite story (and how it keeps returning to his work), as well as how Mignola created a shared universe where others could have the same creative freedom that he found will emotionally reach you regardless of your level of comic or genre movie knowledge.
For those of us who know and love characters like Lobster Johnson and Ben Daimio, this is everything.
Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters is playing at Popcorn Frights and will be available to watch virtuallyas part of the festival.
William, a grieving detective (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), hunts down criminals who trade artificial humans on the black market. What would we call a cop like that? A blade runner? No matter — there’s also an underground resistance trying to sabotage the business of men hiring artificial humans to be their wives, just as William programs his companion Meredith (Elena Kampouris from My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; I watched both of these movies in the same week, which gave me some level of meta whiplash) to take the place of his dead wife.
Kampouris is amazing in this as she really appears to be a robotic being; I don’t mean that as her acting is wooden. Instead, her performance gives us a true window into what robotic companions — alerting Dr. Anton LaVey from the world beyond — will be like in our tomorrow. There’s an astounding scene where she recites the manual to William, as he adjusts her command settings, intimacy level and sexual desire percentage before making love to her. It sets up how alien this coupling is.
Director and writer James Bird has some good ideas here, but instead of exploring the relationship between a widow and the mechanic woman who replaces his lost bride, this goes into a different place where AI creations are rising up against their male masters. Isn’t it better that these men are leaving women alone and basically left to their own devices?
I did love the scene where Meredith attempts some self-love and gets an access denied message that stops her. More of that thinking would have taken this film to the level it deserves to be.
Wifelike is playing in select theaters and available on digital.
If there’s a weapon to be considered the strangest in the films of Shaw Brothers, the flying guillotine would be it. From 1975’s Flying Guillotine to the 1976 sequel Master of the Flying Guillotine (which is also a sequel to One-Armed Boxer), 1977’s Taiwan-made entry Fatal Flying Guillotine and this movie, 1978’s Flying Guillotine 2: Palace Carnage and Vengeful Courage, also made the same year, the deadly hat with a bladed rim attached to a long chain that envelopes human heads and tears them clean off just can’t be topped.
Original director Ho Meng Hua was busy working on The Mighty Peking Man, so this film was originally going to be made by Cheng Kang. But so many problems attacked this film, which took nearly two years from filming to release.
For example, actress Liu Wu Chi completely left the film industry and was replaced by Hsiao Yao. Then, Chen Kuan Tai broke away from Shaw Brothers, leaving the movie without its star. And then, Hsiao Yao also left acting. Was this movie cursed?
Maybe. After all, Cheng Kang left the movie and Hua Shan (The Super Infra-Man) had to finish it.
That’s why this movie is episodic and the editing feels chaotic. I have no idea how all the film shot was even placed together to make something this coherent. It works in spite of the pain that it was created in. Maybe it was forged in fire to be something better than it should be.
So what’s happening here? The Emperor (Ku Feng) wants to kill Ma Tang (Ti Lung), but first he must improve the flying guillotine so that Ma Tang — who figured out how to stop the deadly weapon before — can be dealt with. At the same time, a female hero named Na Lan (Shih Szu) is trying to steal those plans.
This is one of the most doom-filled Shaw Brothers movies I’ve seen — there are literally crosses with decapitated heads hanging from them — and the final scenes are filled with slow motion and a downbeat finale. That said, any movie with a chain swinging a death device is going to be awesome, no matter if it has way too many characters to keep track of.
The 88 Films blu ray release of Flying Guillotine 2 has a high definition 1080p presentation of the movie, along with commentary by Asian cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema, a trailer, a double-sided poster and a slipcase with new art by R.P. “Kung Fu Bob” O’Brien. You can order it from MVD.
Tom Wopat returns as Sheriff Alden Rockwell in the sequel to 2017’s County Line. He has to work with neighboring lawman Sheriff Jo Porter (Kelsey Crane) whose modern policework clashes with his small town old school ways. But when a lawyer being killed on their county line is the first in a series of murders, they have to figure out how to work together.
I hadn’t seen the first film but I really enjoyed the way that Wopat plays an aging lawman who still has something to offer and a devotion to upholding the rules and protecting his people. He’s dealing with the loss of his wife and impending retirement, to which Wopat adds a certain gravitas to.
Plus, Abbi Butler is really good as his daughter Ember and it’s nice to see Patricia Richardson from Home Improvement in the cast.
Director Brent Christy will be directing the next movie in this series, County Line: No Fear, while writer James Phillips has plenty of experience in episodic TV.
If you’re looking for a family-friendly — there’s some murder and explosions, but it’s tastefully done — action and detective work, County Line/All In is a great choice.
You can learn more about County Line/All In on the official Mill Creek site. You can buy this movie from Deep Discount.
Due to a traumatic childhood experience — look, I feel like I say this every time in the way of giving advice to horror movie characters and I feel like a broken record, but please please please never ever forever go back home again and set things straight — Anna (Riann Steele) hasn’t been back home in years. She makes the next cardinal modern horror mistake: she takes care of her dementia-suffering grandmother Lucy (Jane Lowe) — The Taking of Deborah Logan has been such a big influence in the near-decade since it was released — but soon realizes that a dark family secret remains and that only her murky childhood memories may hold the key to surviving.
The first full-length movie from director Jamie Hooper after a series of shorts, this movie was written by first-time screenwriter Helen Miles. Even from the start of the story, the old English cottage is quite a foreboding place, as we see a young Anna go from being read a ghost story by her father to being chased under the covers by something she can’t see but has it to be real.
Unlike so many modern ghost stories that descend into herky jerky motions and dark whispered dialogue alternating with strobing light to show us hauntings, The Creeping settles for what has always worked, appearing closer to a traditional and classic ghost story than what we’ve had to take in modern films. It’s quite welcome.
Leader (Destini Stewart), Willow (Sophie Bawks-Smith), Jules (Jillian Frank), Vicky (Mari Geraghty) and Millie (Rowan Wales) have gone all Lord of the Flies Canada edition and leave behind parents and boyfriends to live in the woods all on their own with their own rules and things go about exactly as well as you’d expect when five teenage girls lose their minds.
The girls live under a rule of suitable revenge, which means if someone upsets you, you get to go after them with all the force and madness that an 18-year-old girl who has never left home before can muster which is a metric ton if you were worried about the conversion.
First-time director Avalon Fast and co-writer Emmett Roiko have put together an interesting script, but the performances are stilted and near-student level — I love reading reviews that claim this is intended and makes it a better movie, film people will forgive anything — while the editing is not the best and the sound quality is borderline static at best in some scenes. That said, there are moments that look gorgeous, which stand out and make you wish the same care was delivered throughout the movie.
That said, I do love parts of this, like the letters the girls write to loved ones before they leave, like Leader telling her boyfriend, “When I want you, I’ll come get you.” This feels like a trial run — like your teen years — for something better, remembering the rough edges yet knowing how to imbue them with the honey of experience.
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